We were very predictable in attack and our defence was poor.

quite frankley a better coached team would have demolished Wigan, however when you have an attack that consists of flinging it wide and hoping, combined with a defence that doesnt know how to turn a player onto his back then you can put all the effort in that you are capable of, but lose against a team that is coached properly.

You attacked the right side (charnley, tomkins) all afternoon, it eventually paid off with 2 tries, but was a poor return overall and would never been enough to win you the game. Mixing the attack to attack both sides would have certainly bagged you a few more tries for me.




Thats what i think also, when your not winning you can always blame injuries, we've had fielden roberts and gleeson out all season, plus minor injuries to most players in the squad. Does this not count for whatever reason?

Saints run the risk of becoming what Wigan used to be under Noble as perennial 'nearly men'

Resigning Leon Pryce is an absolute necessity. He is brilliant and although far from top fitness today was very influential IMO, letting Lomax go hunting. It's amazing how solid we look with him on the field, compared to the headless chickens routines we go through without him.

Your joking right....Pryce went missing again in a big game and has no heart...just like his brother

Near perfect, bloody 'ell Saddened!

Too many times with tackles in the bank you made dumb plays, Meli's pass to Foster in the fast half, Wellens & Moore dropped simple balls early in the tackle count etc.

You can take great heart from your defence today, from an attacking point of view, lots to work on.

Very harsh. Yes, we were naive in attack, but our management of the ruck was pretty good, and save for a sloppy ten minute spell in the second half during which we allowed Wigan to dictate terms, we slugged it out in the middle.

We can slug it out n the middle with anyone but it's all wasted when we can't do anything with the ball.

For most of today's game, I just couldn't see us scoring.

As a neutral who no longer subscribes to Sky, I don't get to see you too often these days. I was skocked by your decline. Yes, you did alot of the basics right but I thought you were poonderous in attack and lacked ideas. Having said that, based on what Royce Simmons said I'm not sure half the team were fit - which is what I was thinking whilst watching. EG Fraham looked knackered, Meli (aside from his two try creating moments!) looked awful too. I reckon they were ill / unfit. If that was the case, it was a pretty good performance.

I don't think Wigan are a great side at present. I just think others are much weaker than they have been in recent years which makes them look better than they are.

I agree, I just thought CM's criticism of our defence was unwarranted.

Thsts a little unfair on Wigan, they are are very well drilled team and clinical today.

Your correct, we do the basics well and we work hard but we ain't good enough with ball in hand.

Sorry, I haven't watched it on tv, just got back but don't agree that it was a good performance. There was plenty of effort but in attack, for the first 65 mins, we were pretty much clueless at the end of our sets. We wasted field position and possession over and over again and despite having numerous sets on wigans line, we weren't clinical enough. That was the difference between the two sides, Wigan had 3 chances to score are took every one. Not a perfect performance, but again, can't fault the effort.

Don't want to bag them when they are down but Scott Moore made a handling error under the Wigan sticks when we had a great chance of scoring, he compounded it on the next set with a high shot that cost us a penalty, put Wigan in our 20m area and they scored. It's things like that that Wigan punish you for. I agree about Leon too, thought he was pretty anonymous all afternoon, catch and pass every time, we were slagging Kyle off for just the same kind of thing at the start of the season.

Couldn't agree more mate but you'll not convince the one eyed ones on here and there'll be a million pages of excuses before dawn breaks. Wigan are really effective across the park and get no more luck than anyone else - at the moment you are just so much better than any other team and as I said at the start of the season you'll win both competitions by a long way.

For me the difference today was the same difference there's been all season and that I've been saying all season. The coach. You have a superb one who is skilled at team excellence in every discipline, we have an average one whose only contribution is to perpetuate the one dimensional nature of our team. Saints won't win anything until we get a superb one.

Congrats - enjoy your day at Wembley (hope you get stuffed mind )

First of all I didn't think it was a great game, and neither did I think that both teams played to the best of their ability. Although I would say Saints played closer to their best than Wigan did.

I thought Saints dominated territory and field poisistion, but due to inept attack and great Wigan defense, you couldn't make it pay.

I thought the biggest difference, and I'm in agreement with StPete on this one. Is the poor quality of the Saints backs, and their inability to break tackles or create something out of nothing. Which is due in part to the poor style of attack you play. Pryce was once again hailed as the messiah and savior, yet ultimately failed to deliver as he has so often in the past.

Still credit to your lads, they may not have won. But the effort they put in was there for all to see.

Finally just for FearTheVee's benefit. Wilkin was anonymous as he is in all the big games.

Of course Saints have had their injuries but have to overcome them, squads are there for that purpose.
As has been said Fielden played just one game this season. Mossop is a stand in prop!
Roberts was superb prior to being injured v HKR last year and has hardly played since.
Gleeson hasn't been replaced. Wigan are playing Joel T in his place and he ain't a centre!
Saints would have been going into the game minus players as did Wigan. Both teams would have had players out there carrying knocks. That happens this time of the season.
Saints are having to re-build after years of having the same top class players perform for them. They are now almost all gone.
Graham is departing as is Eastmond, Pryce is going to Catalans as you know. Again, all three are quality players who will have to be replaced.

I would suggest you think about the DW match and reconsider. As Simmons said in his post match interview, we were too lateral in attack. We didn't run on to the ball, we didn't back up, we flung it out wide when we should have struck from the middle. Why did we do these things? Because our halfbacks were missing. Leon Pryce didn't turn up today, made some howlers and in actual fact, due to Wigan's superb defence in the first half, we actually had the wrong stand off on the pitch. We needed Lee Gaskell. We have scored tries from his kicks. Kicking was the only thing that would have given us tries in the first half. Poor old Jon Wilkin tried his hardest but we needed a skilled kicker and he was on the bench. That, IMO, was the only mistake Simmons made as coach today. The rest was down to Wigan and our own players.

What I thought was very encouraging was that we took the game to Wigan and we disrupted them. Damn shame we couldn't make the kill but them's the breaks and I just hope that Roby and Graham playing with serious injuries hasn't ruined our chances of beating Hudds on Friday. That is a very important game for us if we are to get something from this crazy season.

And we do deserve something IMO.

We're not as good as Warrington or Wigan. 3rd is fine for us, we don't deserve to win anything.